NEW YORK — April, a poet famously said, is the cruelest month. But on Broadway, it’s the month of amazing, unbridled optimism.
Between April 1 and April 26, no fewer than 16 Broadway shows are opening, an average of more than one red carpet and selfie station every two days. It’s the busiest April ever. And this with the COVID-19 crisis not entirely in the rearview mirror.
Is this a reflection of massive new demand? Not really. There is certainly evidence that Broadway has staged a healthy recovery in recent weeks, as tourists have returned to Midtown and New Yorkers have felt more comfortable being inside the theater [masks still are required]. But the increasing grosses don’t necessarily reflect the amount that producers are now paying to promote their shows and attract their audiences.
Add in another 16 shows — from “Funny Girl” to “Macbeth”— to the shelves of the Broadway grocery story, and it’s going to be a whole lot more competitive, especially with international travel still barely a blip of its former self.
So what’s going on? Sealed shut by the pandemic, a lot of empty theaters were sitting open for new shows this spring. But the April awards deadline mostly is to blame. As they once sung in “The Producers,” “Tony, Tony, Tony, Tony.”
Producers clearly remain convinced that the Tony bounce is still a real thing, even though entertainment awards shows have been tanking in TV ratings over the past two years. Are the Tony Awards really that big a deal anymore? Apparently so in the tradition-loving Broadway business. The April rush of openings is a big bet both on the pull of the Tonys at the box office and and of healthy pentup demand from Broadway lovers this summer.
Nobody has wanted to wait until May. Or July. Heavens, no.
So what’s coming all in a rush?
Fans of serious new musicals can look forward to “Paradise Square,” an expensively produced and stirring show that looks at New York’s famous Five Points neighborhood, known for its historic integration of Black Americans and Irish immigrants and a comeback attempt by Garth Drabinsky, who served time in jail for financial chicanery but has staked the rehabilitation of his reputation as a hands-on producer on the success of this ambitious new piece. Already the show, which has looked wobbly financially, has hit COVID trouble, when one of its lead performers, the hugely talented Chilina Kennedy, tested positive and had to miss what were supposed to be critics’ performances. She was back last weekend, a high-stakes one for Drabinsky and his dreams of a return.
Revival fans are waiting for “Funny Girl,” banking on the pleasures of a freshly revised book by the ever-puckish Harvey Fierstein and a lead performance from Beanie Feldstein (”Booksmart,” “Lady Bird”) in a tricky role made famous by Barbra Streisand. “Funny Girl” has not been revived on Broadway in 58 years. Let’s hope we don’t find out why.
Stars are out all over town. You can see Billy Crystal in “Mr. Saturday Night,” the newly timely (!) story of a stand-up comedian, albeit unslapped in the face; Debra Messing in “Birthday Candles,” a new play by the gifted playwright Noah Haidle that plays tricks with how we age; Jesse Williams (”Grey’s Anatomy”), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (”Modern Family”) and Patrick J. Adams (”Suits”) in a revival of the whip-smart Richard Greenberg play “Take Me Out,” an ode to the writer’s love of baseball. And the high-profile trio of Laurence Fishburne, Sam Rockwell and Darren Criss star in David Mamet’s “American Buffalo,” a brilliant old-school play about surrogate parenting in a Chicago junk store.
Chicago also is represented by “The Minutes,” a powerful and creepy Tracy Letts drama that sounds an alarm against the corruption of small-town politics, featuring that city’s famous Steppenwolf Theatre Co. actors, with a few ringers like Noah Reid (”Schitt’s Creek”). That show was just one day from opening when Broadway shut down in March 2020; like so much else, it has been frozen in time.
The darkly comic British play “Hangmen” by Martin McDonagh (the story of an executioner who finds himself out of a job) also is a work that it was uncertain if Broadway ever would see. And then there are a pair of plays well known in the world of theater that are getting major new productions; Paula Vogel’s groundbreaking “How I Learned to Drive” and Ntozake Shange’s poetic masterwork, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf.”
What are we forgetting? Well, there’s “The Little Prince,” Anne Tournie's highly visual entertainment based on the Antoine de Saint-Exupery novel and, lest we forget, “Macbeth,” the notorious Shakespearean tragedy known for wrecking havoc wherever it is unleased and here starring Daniel Craig (yes, James Bond as the Thane of Cawdor), with Ruth Negga as Lady M.
But we’ve left perhaps the most interesting of all these shows until last: Michael R. Jackson’s “A Strange Loop,” a widely admired new Off-Broadway musical finally making it to Broadway.
It’s all about an usher at “The Lion King,” a reminder that Broadway does not function on stars alone. Let’s hope New York finds room for everybody. And we’ll let you know what we think of each and every show.
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